University of Montana Accused of ‘Grizzly Bigotry’ for Refusing Conservative Speech

University of North Carolina at Wilmington Professor and conservative author Mike Adams was invited to come and speak at the University of Montana on behalf of the Jeff Cole Foundation, which offers scholarships at the institution, but Adams’ ability to speak on campus was rejected by Dean of Journalism Larry Abramson, all without Adams’ knowledge.

"When I found out about it, it was certainly shocking," said Adams after he read about the speech being rejected. "I just believe, that, in the interest of free speech, if the folks there in the department: if the dean and other professors and students have problems with my positions on various social and political issues they should have invited me to discuss them, because that is what we do in higher education."

Dean Abramson has accused Adams of using “hate speech” and expressed concerns that Adams was “siding with Christians in the “culture war.’” Adams says these comments should bring into question Abramson’s competence as dean.

"The things that he has said, the levels of religious animus that he has shown, his willingness to engage in viewpoint discrimination and his dismissal of contrary views and, quite frankly, what appears to be an ignorance of basic First Amendment law: I think that these are reasons to question his competence as the dean," Adams said.

Adams went on to say “there is no hate speech exception to the first amendment” and that this was a topic he was hoping to discuss at the University of Montana with lots of room for questions from journalism students. Despite the speech being pulled at UM, Adams will be speaking off campus in Missoula next February.